Suspect killed during foot chase following bank robbery
By Ruma Kumar and Laura McCandlish, Sun reporters
The Baltimore Sun
Severna Park, Md. - A police officer was wounded and a bank robbery suspect killed after a shootout in a Severna Park neighborhood this morning, Anne Arundel County police said.
Around 9 a.m., a man walked into a Bank of America in the 600 block of Baltimore Annapolis Blvd. and began pulling a hat or mask over his face. The man, whose identity has not been released, calmly asked for cash and left the bank, walking north on Baltimore Annapolis Boulevard, police said.
Bank employees called police, who spotted a man matching the description of the bank robber and began pursuing him on foot. When police ordered the man to stop just south of Marbury Road, the man turned around and began shooting at them with a handgun, said Lt. David Waltemeyer, an Anne Arundel County police spokesman. About a half-dozen officers pursued the man as he ran through yards in a residential neighborhood.
On Kimberly Road, the man again began firing on police, and a bullet struck one of the officers in the upper part of his left leg. Police said that Officer Doyle Holquist, 32, was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he was treated for non-life-threatening injuries and released before noon. Doyle has been a member of the police department for a year and a half.
During the shootout, the man was shot and killed by police, Waltemeyer said. All of the officers involved have been placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation, which is routine, Waltemeyer said.
Ann Waltman, who has lived on Kimberly Court for nearly 30 years, said she has never seen such violence on her quiet block, where mostly retirees live.
“I just heard the shots, and I thought it was a car backfiring or fireworks, but then the second time, I knew it was something else,” said Waltman, 62, who was watching television at the time.
The gunshots were coming from in front of the house next door on Kimberly Court. Waltman feared her neighbor, Janet Pumphrey, was hurt. Waltman later learned that Pumphrey was out at the time.
“I’m shook up,” Waltman said. “I was scared to death she had been shot. I’m just thankful that nobody in the neighborhood got hurt.”
Several piles of money were scattered in the back yard of an adjacent home on Baltimore Annapolis Boulevard, and police had about four homes roped off at noon today, Waltman said.
Copyright © 2007, The Baltimore Sun